“In today’s technological evolution, impossible is nothing” – Adidas. This intriguing quote hardly caught my attention until recently, when I stumbled upon the phenomenon of neuro marketing and its influence on small and medium scaled businesses!
Today, we find businesses growing bigger in size and scaling up at breakneck speed in a bid to grab maximum market share.Organizations are therefore finding monitoring consumer pattern a very primitive means of shaping up their business strategy. Finding it difficult to comprehend? Let me explain…
What’s this Neuromarketing all about?
In laymen terms, Neuromarketing signifies the study of how the human brain responds to marketing stimuli. This means, businesses study how their consumers brain works when they come across their product. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?! This study/technique utilizes instruments of neuroscience that help us infer why consumers tend to favor certain items and reject others! In fact, Neuromarketing is considered to be one of the most extensive and expensive studies of all time! Consumer Behavior continues to be an enigma, with varying degrees of success in discovering a pattern. After all, studying emotions & feelings isn’t that easy, is it?
Neuromarketing studies the emotions that are relevant in the “human” decision-making process. It makes use of this extensive knowledge to make “marketing/branding” more effective by:
- Applying it in product design,
- Enhancing promotions and advertising,
- Deciding pricing,
- Store design.
Doing this extensive exercise thereby improves the consumer experience by yards and miles.
Do medical devices really help us gauge consumer behavior?
To justify this question, let’s consider a simple logic. As consumers, anyone and everyone are extremely motivated by what makes them feel great (especially when they are making decisions of purchasing!). Imagine an instrument of sorts that evidently tells us which emotions of a consumer ought to be targeted for lucrative branding?! Well, neuromarketing does precisely that! Taking this into account, numerous companies out there have shown enthusiasm in understanding one crucial aspect: “How the human mind can help them to understand their buyers better. Needless to say, as an incipient yet quickly developing field, Neuromarketing has been making wonders for businesses.
Was Neuromarketing ever used?
Neuromarketing is a relatively new term but I am sure you’d be surprised to see how profusely an array of industries have put it to lucrative use! This list also gives you an idea on how Neuromarketing has helped industries master the trade!
- On top of our list is our very own Google & MediaVest when they partnered with a biometric researcher “NeuroFocus” to gauge how users responded to their “InVideo” advertisements (the semi-transparent overlay ads on YouTube). The statistics recorded responses from 40 participants, along their attention, emotional engagement, and effectiveness.
- Next, is our big bee Microsoft which made use of EEG data to understand its users’ interactions with its personal and laptop computers, including feelings of “surprise, satisfaction, and frustration.”
- To learn how to position themselves better in advertising, Frito-Lay studied the female brain and discovered that it needed to avoid talking about “guilt”—even “guilt-free”—and instead focus on making “healthy” associations in its advertising!
- The Weather Channel (TWC) was another company that partnered with NeuroFocus, as it prepared to relaunch its “When Weather Changed History” series.
- eBay – With its online payment company PayPal, eBay has realized that the need for speed of service aroused more interest than the need for the security of banking information!
- Mercedes-Benz launched an advertising campaign in which the front of the cars was shaped like human faces, appealing directly to the “pleasure” sensors of the brain. The brand recorded a 12% sales increase in just one quarter!
- Out of the blue – A homeless man’s sign: On the advice of a neuromarketing specialist who passed by him, a homeless man changed the message on his sign from “Homeless. Please help me.” to “What if you were starving?”. The beggar collected $60 within a few hours as opposed to $2 at the same time the previous day, simply by arousing the emotions of passersby instead of merely begging!!!
Some contemporary examples on neuromarketing used by SMB’s
- Emotions play a wide role in Neuromarketing and famous Digital Marketer, Brian Dean never missed this simple formula! Given below is an excerpt from his blog that holistically targets users emotion! His CTA is not just any button that offers for a sign up but sweeps into your mind and reminds you that not signing up is in fact, going to let you remain where you are, without any progression!
- Testimonials are another form of lucrative Neuromarketing technique that’s been widely put to use by SMB’s to trigger trust and credibility of brands. Infact, in 2013 when Zendesk conducted a survey, it was inferred that 90% of customers influence their decision based on reviews and testimonials.
- Third most interesting part of Neuromarketing is using the right color schema! Science has proved that people make up their minds about brands in approx 90 seconds out of which 62-90% is based purely on colors! The following color chart by renowned internet entrepreneur and digital marketer Neil Patel tells you how colors affect the human brain during decision making.
- Another classic example of Neuromarketing by SMB’s was done by Burger Revolution from Ontario. Their strategy included social media wherein they kept informing fans on the number of burgers that were left for the day! This created a “sense of urgency” to the fans and naturally keeps them on their toes!
Final thoughts on Neuromarketing
In a clutter of ideas, thoughts and innovations Neuromarketing has significantly flourished with the most basic advantage – an understanding of how the “human brain” works, adapts and reciprocates.
The beauty of neuromarketing holistically lies in the roots of human emotions and is extremely vital to comprehend the purchasing behavior of a human. It forms one of the most integral part of marketing as it integrates your outbound and inbound marketing strategies.
This guest post is written by Kavya Hemachandar. Addicted to novels and coffee, Kavya contributes as a Digital Strategist at Spinta Digital here. When the subtlety of social media is off her table, she happily sticks to blogging and music.
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